


Deliberately

by BookWyvern



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Anderperry is great tho, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Please be gentle, idk about this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:44:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8343982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BookWyvern/pseuds/BookWyvern
Summary: "And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived"
Perhaps Neil couldn't achieve this, but maybe Todd still could.





	

_ “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately…” _

__  
  


Todd walked in short, unsure strides. Pitiful ones really, seeming simply . . . simple. There was no better word. (Synonyms, perhaps, but no word that seemed to hit it on the mark.) No grandness to it, no deliberation. All there was to notice was the sound of remaining snow and a few sticks crunching under his feet. Meanwhile the wind whistled softly through the trees around him, which held the buds of new leaves. Amongst these trees, hopeful birds sang love songs to each other.

All those little noises, and it was still just  _ quiet _ . Quiet and cold. Freezing. Frigid. The noises were nothing but blurred sounds that made Todd feel colder - more alone - as they forced him to be further aware of the overall silence. After all, you can only hear the little sounds when you have no warm thoughts to drown them out, and Todd knew this.

Still, he wouldn't let a little sorrow and unsureness deter him from moving forward. If he was going to be sorrowful and undeliberate, he might as well do it in a place that reflected past deliberation.

__  
  


_ “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life!” _

__  
  


Todd reached the meeting cave and ducked into it. Strewn about the floor were a few papers, stray leaves, a red sharpie, and a blunt. The last two objects were probably Charlie’s doing, and it certainly wasn't the most romantic thing to see while seeking memories of important people who've left. Still, Charlie was Charlie, (or rather, Nuanda,) and Todd wasn't going to scold them for having a bit of fun. After all, it was just  bit of recreational drugs and a sharpie, and other members had left worse things here on separate occasions. Plus, these were probably here for awhile. It obviously wasn't meant to be insensitive to who this cave now represented. Despite their reckless tendencies towards other things, Nuanda wouldn't do a thing to hurt this place.

Todd, brushing the blunt aside, gathered up the papers. He glanced over each one to find that they were poems. His poems, in fact. But these weren't poems he had brought to a meeting. These were the personal ones that caused him a panicked frenzy when they went missing. These were Todd’s  _ extremely _ shameful and mushy love poems _. _ He hadn't seen these for quite some time. Since long before everything went wrong. Since before Neil had died.

Well, really, he had always been dying, just slowly. Neil didn't turn cold and die right away. Like summer changing to autumn, and then to winter - his warmth left him slowly. Perry  _ was _ the most attentive to the advice Mr. Keating gave, following it possibly being his desperate attempt to hold onto himself. He never really did seem to know his reasons for living, and acting was just an escape where he pretend could be someone who did.

Still, these poems were from a time before this became too prominent. And it was certainly from a time where Neil was still feeling some positive emotions.

These last two notions occurred due to the fact that these were Todd’s poems, but it was in red sharpie that Neil’s silly doodles bordered the corners of the pages. It was Neil’s comments that taunted the mushy poems that were written on the bottoms of the pages. And it was in Neil’s handwriting that ‘I love you too, dork.' was scrawled in the margins of one of the poems that seemed to mention an apparently enthusiastic pursuer of theatre. 

__  
  


_ “To put to rout all that was not life…” _

__  
  


So that was it. Neil felt something for Todd, and said nothing directly. Todd, too, was foolish enough to not say anything about how he felt. How would they have told each other aloud if Neil was still here? This was a naive question,Todd realised, for if neither one said anything then, why would they say anything in the future? They both turned out to be rather horrible at really pursuing fearful things.

So now, Todd found out from a mere piece of paper with silly doodles that Neil had liked him. Neil had learned from a bunch of stupid words on that same paper, and had said nothing, even when he could. _Why?_ He wondered. But that would go unanswered, as now that Neil was dead anyway. Gone. He _killed_ himself. And Todd was a cold, sad wreck. All he felt was cold and sorrowful and bitter that Neil was taken from him. From _everyone._

Not to mention Keating was gone too. The school had seen to that. Now all he had was the other members of the society, but that just wasn't the same. Neil had been the one that really included Todd. He included  _ everyone _ . Neil was the heart of the society; the one that distributed strong excitements throughout the boys. And Mr. Keating - he  _ showed them  _ the excitement and passion, that now coursed through them. He gave all of them all of the sparks that started the burning emotions they now had.

The emotions that took ahold of them. The emotions that made Neil fall down cold. The emotions that made Todd  _ feel _ cold. But hell, isn't it better to feel cold than to feel indifferent? Wasn't it better to lose love than to never have it?

__  
  


_ “And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived…” _

__  
  


Keating had given life to the boys, and Neil made Todd want to live. Not just the person Neil, but the idea of Neil. The idea of the promising boy who wanted to be an actor above all else he had the opportunity to do. The boy who  _ couldn't  _  love  _ anything _ shamelessly, and didn't know what to do because of it. The  _ boy _ , the teenage  _ child _ , who took his life because he was not allowed to live. The idea that a beautiful thing can die ever so quickly, which makes you want to insure that it won't happen again.

Todd could so easily join Neil right now, but he  _ wouldn't _ . He'd wait. He could still live, and so he would. Maybe Todd was a beautiful thing that didn't deserve to die either.

And maybe someday, somewhere beyond, (if there  _ was _ anywhere beyond,) they could be together again. They could once again be boys, and love each other in the way they never gave themselves the opportunity to.

__  
_ But until then,  _ thought Todd,  __ I will live.   


**Author's Note:**

> This was my first work, so I'm sorry if it's horrible. But hey, don't we learn from mistakes?


End file.
